Population and Climate: It’s Not Me, It’s You (China), Say Candidates’ Environmental Advisers

At a news conference (watch; listen; read) with the three presidential candidates’ environmental advisers, Constance Holden of Science dropped the population bomb, asking what each candidate proposed to do about the role of population growth in the climate change problem. The advisers immediately scrambled to duck and cover, mentioning China and its growing consumption, then quickly moving on to something—anything!—else.

Jason Grumet, environmental adviser to Sen. Barack Obama and the president and founder of the Bipartisan Policy Council in Washington, DC:

“It’s not just a question of population growth, but it’s also a question of the rest of the world beginning to aspire to the comforts that we have come to take for granted here. When people achieve an annual income of about $5,000 a year they start to buy cars and you are going to see somewhere between 3 and 500 million people in China find themselves in that position in the next decade.”

“I don’t have an absolute direct answer on the population question, but let me make a point that’s perhaps relevant, which is that the controlling of CO2 and greenhouse gases in developing countries is going to be increasingly critical. I think 75 percent of emissions growth in the next 25 years is expected to come from developing countries and China is, far and away, the lead among them.”

Jim Woolsey, environmental adviser to Senator John McCain, former CIA Director, and attorney with Goodwin Procter:

“[W]e shouldn’t assume that just because the Chinese young couple who have finally kind of made it into the middle class want to buy an automobile, that for the foreseeable future it’s always going to be an automobile propelled by carbon emitting sources of one kind or another. The technology is changing.”

The upcoming SEJ Annual Conference in Roanoke, Virginia, will include a panel discussion on population and climate.

Meaghan, thank you so much for posting this. I wasn’t aware of this conference and have been wondering how the candidates would respond to the overpopulation question that was posed to these advisors, if ever a journalist was smart enough to ask the question.

I write a blog that deals with overpopulation, immigration and trade from the perspective of my book, “Five Short Blasts: A New Economic Theory Exposes The Fatal Flaw in Globalization and Its Consequences for America.” This conference will be great fodder for my blog.

Thanks again.

Pete MurphyAuthor, Five Short Blasts

Kathleen Mogelgaard

The issue of population growth rarely finds its way into the current discourse on climate change, and I was pleased to see that a reporter from Science raised it as an issue for the current presidential candidates to consider.

The National Audubon Society has strong education and advocacy campaigns on both climate change and population growth (in recognition of the fact that rapid population growth is one of the main drivers of habitat loss around the world), and in recent months we have been working in collaboration with other organizations to draw connections between these two major global environmental concerns (check out our 2-page fact sheet on this linkage).

The relationship between population growth and the growth in greenhouse gas emissions is complex, and is mediated by a range of other factors including economic growth, technological change, and land use patterns. However, there is no question that addressing the climate change challenge over the next 50 years will be easier with slower population growth.

And the good news is that we already know how to encourage slower population growth through positive and cost-effective policy interventions like providing educational opportunities for girls, expanding economic opportunities for women, and expanding access to comprehensive reproductive health and family planning services to the millions of women and couples around the world who already demand these services. These are win-win strategies that are desirable in their own right, and will have the added value of relieving pressure on our overtaxed resources, including the atmosphere.